


making/sense/memories

by surgicalstainless



Category: Leverage
Genre: Asexual Character, Boundary Negotiations, Developing Relationship, Families of Choice, Fluff, Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Oblique soft-focus descriptions of sex, Parker's pov, Polyamory, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surgicalstainless/pseuds/surgicalstainless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first time she thought she might like to smell Eliot really wasn't anything special..."</p><p>The story of Parker's and Alec's and Eliot's relationship, as filtered through Parker's five senses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	making/sense/memories

 

The first time she thought she might like to smell Eliot really wasn't anything special.

They were all getting ready for a briefing, and Eliot wandered in from the kitchen holding a mug of coffee. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that looked very soft, and his hair was just brushing his shoulders, and she looked and thought she might like to bury her face in the angle of his neck just there. She thought she'd like to put her nose into his hair where it fell against his skin, take a deep breath. She thought he'd smell clean, and woodsy, but she wasn't sure.

Eliot sat down. Hardison cracked an orange soda. Nate started the briefing. Nothing special.

The first time she actually _did_ smell Eliot he was in the kitchen, chopping bell peppers. She came up behind him and pressed her body against his back so she could stand on tiptoe and put her face into his neck. Eliot gave a full-body flinch (she could _feel_ it, she was pressed so close) and carefully put his knife down.

"Parker, what the hell?"

His voice felt like a shiver against her chest. 

"I wanted to know what you smelled like."

Eliot was silent for a little while, and she took advantage of the opportunity to steal several deep breaths right against his skin. Eventually he took up the knife again and paused, blade poised over the strips of red pepper.

"...Okay."

She'd been right. He did smell clean, and woodsy. He also smelled like bell peppers.

 

Eliot smelled different at different times, though. He smelled like coffee in the mornings. He smelled like leather and sweat and blood after a job. Once, after a very bad job, he smelled like gun oil and wouldn't say why. On nights off he smelled like pizza and popcorn and beer, or sometimes wine on a special occasion. Her favorites were the times he cooked, though.

It became kind of a habit. Whenever Eliot cooked she would move up behind him and press herself along his back, stretch up just a little to put her chin on his shoulder. Eliot stopped flinching after the first few times, so she figured it was okay.

It was a good position. From there she could see what he was doing, and learn the spices she smelled on his skin. If she asked, he'd name them for her: rosemary, cumin, star anise.

Eliot was dicing celery, the scent rising green and peppery to her nose, when he rocked back on his heels to catch a piece that threatened to fall. The motion caught her by surprise; she wrapped her arms around his chest purely by reflex, just to catch herself. Under her hands, Eliot froze.

She considered this new situation. She was comfortable, and warm. She could feel Eliot's lungs working under the circle of her arms, breathing in the same celery-scented air. He held still for her, waiting. Yes, she decided, this might be nice. She poked Eliot in the shoulder with her chin.

"Can I have some celery?"

Wordlessly, he reached up and put a piece into her mouth. When he resumed chopping, his elbows angled out a little so he didn't bump her arms. She could feel his abdominal muscles shifting beneath her fingers, feel his whole body infinitesimally relax. 

She bit down. The celery crunched under her teeth, and a whole kaleidoscope of new flavors bloomed over her tongue. Eliot smelled clean, and woodsy, and also like celery. She thought he might also smell a little bit like home.

 

———

 

Kissing Hardison on a job tasted like champagne and canapés. 

He seemed to like little finger foods — she'd noticed that about him. When he had to dress up for a job, Hardison always made a beeline for the free food. Then, later, when things went wrong and she had to press him up against a wall and kiss him to preserve their cover, she could taste the little mini-quiches or shrimp puffs or whatever. 

She didn't think they did much for his flavor.

 

Kissing Hardison after a job was nothing but sweet. 

One time, he was so hopped up on orange soda and gummy frogs and the success of the job that he forgot himself and kissed her like she was some romance heroine. He twirled her around and dipped her low and planted one on her, and she didn't mind because he looked so damn happy. 

It became kind of a thing.

She always insisted he do the same for Eliot, if they were celebrating, and after a while Hardison stopped making excuses. After a while, Eliot let himself get dipped (but only if no one else was watching). And sometimes, Eliot got dipped first, and when her turn came she could taste them both on Hardison's tongue.

Those kisses tasted sweetest of all.

 

Kissing Hardison for real — well, the first few times, when all of a sudden kissing Meant Something, Hardison tasted like mint. He tasted like toothpaste or mouthwash or breath freshener, or possibly all three, and he was nervous under his smile. 

Under all _that_ , though, he tasted like Hardison, and she discovered she liked the taste. She tried licking a stripe up his neck, to chase the flavor on his skin, and she discovered they both liked that. It was fun.

Then, much later, his hands began to drift south and that wasn't so much fun any more. She put her own hands flat on his chest, in case she needed to push, and breathed "stop" against his mouth —

He did stop. He pulled away and removed his hands and caught her eyes from just inches apart and said "okay," and the taste of his breath on her lips from the other side of that boundary was the best thing she'd savored in years.

 

———

 

She could hear her voice wobble, even if they couldn't.

She was sitting on the couch between them, curled into as tiny a ball as she could make herself, arms wrapped around knees in a tight self-hug.

"I don't like anything more than kissing. Sometimes not even that."

She tried to put all her normal strength into the words, to just say them the same way she'd say "the museum has vibration sensors," just matter-of-fact, but it wasn't really working. There was a quiver there. Vibration sensors would pick it up, she was sure of it.

"I don't always know if I like to be touched."

The men shifted, as if to say this much they had known already. Eliot's shoulder bumped against hers. Hardison's knee drifted sideways a little until it came to rest on the side of her foot. Both touches were light, both promising to be gone and forgotten about, if she wanted to pull away. 

She didn't. They made her feel safer, so she took a deep breath and loosened her arms from around her knees a little.

"I won't have sex with you."

Her voice had never sounded so fragile. The words floated out there between them, pulled by gravity and poised to shatter —

Hardison cleared his throat. 

"Yeah. Okay."

She could feel Eliot's voice rumbling through the point of contact at her shoulder.

"Sure, Parker, whatever you need."

"You just tell us where the lines are, baby."

There was a smile in Hardison's voice, as if this was all okay. She risked a glance. 

There was a smile on Hardison's face, and he really seemed okay. Eliot on her other side looked solemn, and the soft flannel of his shirt whispered against her shoulder as he breathed. She breathed with him for a moment, thought about gravity and all the other laws you could break if you had a good team.

She leaned into Eliot's arm, tucked a foot under Hardison's leg.

"You could still have sex with each other, though."

 _There_ was her voice again, bright and happy in her company. She beamed up at them.

Eliot chuckled, and looked over her head to meet Hardison's gaze.

There was still a smile in Hardison's voice, but this one was different. This one was _interesting_.

"We know, baby, we know."

 

———

 

They let her watch, of course, if she wanted. And she did, because they looked so good together. They were a study in contrast, more beautiful than anything she'd ever stolen before.

Their shapes, _long and lean_ pressed against _compact and well-muscled_.

The way they moved, Alec's loose-limbed grace and Eliot's focused control.

The shades of skin against skin, how the lamplight turned one gold and the other deep and burnished, both priceless works of art.

And then there was the way Eliot threw his head back when Alec bit at his hip. Silken-soft hair gave him a halo on the sheets, the lines of his throat drawn arrow-straight and true. His hands clutched at empty air, found their way to Alec's head and were carefully gentle there. In that pose, Alec's head bent and placing kisses like rosary beads — there was benediction, she was sure of it, all of them equally blessed.

Alec's back, the way it moved in a series of sinuous curves and waves. The gleam of Eliot's teeth on a convenient collarbone. Their tangled thighs, the strange vulnerability of knees. Hair that grew in some places but not others, a series of gardens and thickets of curls. The fingers that ran through them, that reached and gripped and scratched and held. She never grew tired of watching, and they never grew tired of being watched.

Then, when it was all over, when the only movement left was a soft arrhythmic symphony of breaths...

Eliot reached out his hand. She stared at it suspiciously for the space of a few inhales and exhales, but it was just lying there, close to her foot. She glanced over at Eliot. His hair was mussed and sweaty, and he gave her a sleepy smile when he met her eyes. This was an Eliot no one else got to see, she knew. He looked happy, and his hand was just lying there, open and waiting. She considered again the pale circle of his palm, and some unnameable feeling made her put her hand in it. 

Eliot's fingers curled around hers, not too tight, not ever too tight, and then Alec's hand flopped down to join them. It landed gently, palm-down, like he was sealing a pact, like he had something precious cupped under his fingers. Her own small hand was dwarfed between theirs, but she could still find her fingers in the tangle, still see which were hers and his and his.

She squeezed, and so did they, and made their hands a knot no one could ever undo.

 

———

 

It took her a little while to notice, because it's hard to notice a negative.

Alec and Eliot, they almost never touched her first. Alec would hold his arms out for a hug, let her move in. Eliot put himself close to where she was, just there if she wanted to cuddle. The contact they tried was the tentative kind, just to see how the alarms were calibrated. They never, ever stole anything she wasn't willing to give.

So she tried pushing the boundaries a little, because they were hers and she could move them if she wanted to. She scooted under Eliot's arm when they watched old movies. She hugged Alec sometimes even when he wasn't holding his arms out. She put her hands on them whenever she wanted to, because they were hers and she could.

It did not take them that long to notice.

Alec made a happy little hum when she petted his hair while he was typing. Eliot didn't say anything when she placed a gentle hand over his latest bruises instead of poking them, but his shoulders relaxed and his eyes looked less pinched. They opened their arms for her when she wormed her way between them on the big bed they sometimes shared.

Slowly, carefully, they began to try touches in return.

They didn't talk about it, because of the three of them, only Alec really knew how to do that. But the boundaries were gradually redrawn, all three of them building a map made of body language and smiles, of "yes, please," and "no, thank you."

It was why she woke up one morning to the sensation of fingers lightly tracing up and down her spine, and that was okay. She held still for long minutes, captivated by the way the touch sent sparks and shivers fizzing in their wake. When she finally rolled over, it was to meet Alec's sleepy eyes, take his outstretched hand. There was a full foot of space between them, and that was okay too.

It was why she came to be sitting on their bed late one night, leaned against the headboard, Eliot resting against her and Alec kneeling before them both. They were down to their underwear, all of them, and that was okay, because that was where they'd drawn the line. She felt safe here, on the border with them. She could just enjoy the press of skin on skin: the long line of Eliot's back pressed flush to her chest, the way her bare feet fitted to the curve of Alec's calves. 

She was tracing patterns on Eliot's skin. She was ghosting her fingers over every scar, each mark and bruise. She was reading them like Braille, like an unlabeled map, like answers to questions never asked. And everywhere her hands went, Alec's mouth followed after.

She rested her chin on Eliot's shoulder and took it all in. Eliot smelled clean, and woodsy, as always, but right now he also smelled of them, of Alec's deodorant and her shampoo and their mingled sweat. Alec saw her looking, came up for a kiss, and he tasted like toothpaste, but also like Eliot, like the memory of spices left on his skin. She could hear them both breathing, slow warm breaths that tickled her fingers and the soft hitching sighs that came right against her ear. Faintly, she thought she could hear the thud of three heartbeats, steady and sure.

Eliot was shivering against her, a fine tremor that made her heart flutter to match. She thought he might be right, it might be too much to bear —

She reached until she found where Alec and Eliot had tangled their fingers together, twined hers in with them. Eliot laid his head back onto her shoulder, the lines of his throat arrow-straight and true. Alec looked up through his lashes at them, caught her eyes as he placed a kiss on Eliot's hip. And Parker took her free hand, flattened it over the worst of Eliot's scars, pressed down.

 _Mine_ , she thought.

 _No_ , she thought —

 _Ours_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You are heartily encouraged to come visit me on [tumblr](http://z-delenda-est.tumblr.com). I have no idea what I'm doing, but more friends are always better. And I really like prompts.


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